Holding the future in his hands

The B52 Stratofortress flying a routine patrol over the East Coast of the United States on Jan. 24, 1961, lost its wing, lost its tail, spun out of control, and, perhaps most important, lost control of its bomb bay doors before it lost two megaton nuclear bombs.

The plane crashed nose-first into a tobacco field a few paces away from Big Daddy Road just outside Goldboro, N.C., about 60 miles east of Raleigh.

If either of those bombs exploded, any human within 8 1/2 miles of the detonation would be dead immediately. Clouds of radiation would rise over the countryside. The water supply would be compromised.

And those were just the minor problems.

The major problem would be the potential for a nuclear explosion to be misinterpreted. The U.S. military could have easily assumed that the plane had been shot down and that we were under attack. Or, they could have mistakenly thought foreign agents had overtaken the plane and flown a kamikaze mission. Or, they could have mistakenly thought the bombs had been fired by the Soviet Union.

One misinterpretation could have led to World War III or, more accurately, Nuclear War I.

The first bomb had a parachute that opened automatically. As it fell, the parachute got caught in a tree. Only the bomb's nose hit the ground. The rest of it stood erect, like your tall uncle posing for a picture standing on his head.

Jack ReVelle, the munitions expert who now lives in Orange, landed at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base and was rushed to the crash site in a Jeep. The bomb hanging in the tree was easy to spot.

The consummate joker, ReVelle got out of the Jeep and stood in front of it.

“You're right,” ReVelle said. “It's a bomb.”

ReVelle quickly determined the first bomb's ARM/SAFE switch was in the SAFE position. This bomb, as long as that switch wasn't moved, wouldn't hurt anyone.

The second bomb was a bit more problematic, if “a bit” can be used to mean “apocalyptically.”

The second bomb had hit muddy ground and was immediately swallowed up. The 12-foot-long bomb was buried somewhere, but no one knew where it was.

How do you lose a nuclear bomb?

Seven things have to happen for a MK 39 3.8 megaton nuclear bomb to explode. ReVelle would soon discover that six of them had already happened: 1. The arming wires had been pulled; 2. The pulse generators had been activated; 3. The explosive actuators had been fired; 4. Timers had started; 5. Barometric switches had been engaged; and 6. Low-voltage batteries were actuated.

Before he could check the last line of defense – the ARM/SAFE switch – he had to find the bomb.

He remembers joking with people who were searching the countryside, “Excuse me, sir, have you seen a bomb here?”

Finally, someone found a small dent in the earth. ReVelle found a long stick, and, careful not to damage the weapon, poked the stick into the hole. He hit a solid object.

Trying not to disturb the bomb, ReVelle's crew dug an ever-widening circle. They dug for seven days beside the bomb, leaving it sitting up in the middle of the hole like a pimple.

Late on that tense, first day, ReVelle was tired and hungry when he noticed a truck from The Salvation Army. Despite the nuclear danger, they were there handing out cups of black coffee and doughnuts. ReVelle was not a coffee drinker, but he drank it anyway.

“It tasted like my first beer,” said ReVelle, who is forever grateful and donates to The Salvation Army every year.

At one point during the dig (“It was like we were archaeologists – except in the mud,” ReVelle said), a general in dress blues showed up. ReVelle was digging in the hole.

“What's going on here?” the general asked.

“No disrespect, sir, but you really ought to get the hell out of here,” ReVelle said.

When the second bomb didn't explode after a couple of days, detonation stopped being the main concern.

“The worry changed to radiation,” ReVelle said.

Lost in that mud, somewhere, was a ball of uranium and plutonium – the core of the nuclear bomb. It has at least a couple of nicknames. “The Demon Core” is one. ReVelle called it “The Pit.”

On the fifth day of digging, they found the pit.

ReVelle taped his gloves to his sleeves as not to expose his skin. He did not wear anything to cover his face or head – a fact that he now thinks may have been a mistake (though ReVelle has no health problems related to radiation). He fished into the mud with both hands and pulled out the pit. It was about the size of a volleyball. It wasn't glowing. It wasn't hot. It was cold metal.

“It's pretty heavy,” he said. “Uranium and plutonium are approximately the weight of lead. You bend your knees and lift with your whole body.”

Miraculously, as he carried the pit out of the hole, ReVelle couldn't think of a single joke. The only thing he could think: “Don't fall down.”

He placed the pit on a military truck and it was whisked away.

Later, diggers found the ARM/SAFE switch.

It was in the ARM position.

Why that bomb didn't explode has been debated for years. Was the ARM/SAFE switch broken? Did the impact of the crash spread out the parts so far they couldn't affect each other? Was the bomb a dud?

No one will ever know.

The world didn't explode. War didn't break out. Our way of life was not altered.

After eight days of fixing the Broken Arrow, Jack ReVelle left North Carolina.

He got back to his apartment in Fairborn, Ohio, and began to think about what he'd just done.

He said he remembers sitting down at his kitchen table with a pen and a piece of paper. He wanted to explain in a letter to his parents the magnitude of what he'd just experienced.

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